was related to. The Office-based Visits files (released annually in September) – This file captures each office-based encounter of all sampled individuals. This file contains all necessary descriptive information about visits to Primary Care Physicians, specialist physicians, and non-physician medical providers (such as Nurse Practitioners and Physical Therapists) that occurred outside of a hospital setting. In addition to the general event visit information, this file includes certain details about any preventive services, tests, and vaccinations received. The Home Health Visits files (released annually in August) – This file contains one record for each time that a certified home health medical practitioner visits a sampled individual. In addition to the standard event file variables, this file contains information about the home health medical provider's credentials and skills, the length of the visit, and the type(s) of care received. This file includes medical visits by hospice providers, which are generally paid for home-based care through the Medicare Hospice benefit. Publications The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey is commonly the subject of analysis in articles on health policy and health services in research journals such as Health Affairs, JAMA, Health Services Research, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Methodology Noninstitutionalized civilian Americans (both citizens and non-citizens) are sampled at the household, allowing for analyses of medical behavior at the family-level as well as the individual-level. Each year, households containing a total of approximately 15,000 individuals are sub-sampled from the National Health Interview Survey's two year panel. These individuals are then followed with five in-person interviews (rounds) over the course of two years during which a complete demographic profile is collected, all medical encounters are documented, and patient-reported subjective questions regarding topics like satisfaction with care are obtained. MEPS employs a complex survey sample design in order to oversample certain population groups of interest; this survey design must be accounted for (using either the Taylor Series Linearization method or the Balanced repeated replication method) to appropriately calculate the standard errors. References External links Medical Expenditure Panel Survey website Demographics of the United States Quantitative research Healthcare in the United States